


I'll Thrive!

by midiline



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bickering, Drug Abuse, Hopeful Ending, M/M, POV First Person, Painkillers, THEY LIVE!, mello has friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 10:11:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19461835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midiline/pseuds/midiline
Summary: ‘It won’t be weird in ten years.’ I promised, fighting frustration with the limits of Matt's effort. ‘You’ll get used to being bored.’





	I'll Thrive!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everyone who i ever met](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=everyone+who+i+ever+met).



> Thank you as always for checking this fic out! I hope this one has an optimistic feeling, but there are moments of difficulty that might not be everyone's cup of tea, so be sure to read the tags <3

Matt comes in and I ask him what’s wrong.

‘Eh.’, he says, shrugging. With his black shirt limp over one hollow shoulder, he looks more like a sheet draped over a wire hanger than a human man. I worried about him when he was shot like I worry sometimes about, hm, global warming. He sleeps so much these days it’s narcoleptic or depressive; abnormal sleep. It might be his drug use. He was shot 11 times. There are people walking on this Earth right now who have been shot more. But it’s Matt, I should feel a special empathy for him.

‘Did you take Tylenol or something?’ He was taking dilaudid for the bullet wounds, and he liked it. We’ve all been on dilaudid – I mean, both of us, and most of the people I’ve ever known. Tough fucking shit.

He slumps down next to me. Matt is as close to being a liquid as a person has ever come. The couch we have now came with the apartment and it’s unforgiving – a nice couch without aged bounce. It’s so hard against his loose sag, I wonder if he’d be better off on the floor or dead. Obviously I’m happy to have him among the living. I’m in love with him. It’s just... pathetic things have been making me sick ever since I started getting rough. I don’t want to think about him this way, but seriously, I was fucking burnt alive _twice_. I knew a guy who came to work with a knife slipped up between the bone in his arm and the tendons, so blasted on adrenaline and so gifted at ignoring pain that he was indifferent to almost everything. Inhuman, though. That’s insane shit.

‘Yeah.’ Matt answers. He puts his chin on his fist. His eyes are drooping. He never leans on anything; is that strength or stupidity? I would let him put his head in my lap if he was the type. I’ve had boyfriends. Matt’s something else; a soulmate, a sucker. A real piece of work.

In the wake of the Kira case, I’ve gotten right back into my routine. At 0530 I wake up, go to the gym or go for a run. By 0715 I have a cup of coffee. I couldn’t sit with an unproductive morning. Regiment is seeing me through this transitional period – Matt and I are crossing over from perceived (televised) death into boring, no-nonsense, unemployed lives. It sucks. It’s brain rotting. I’m coping.

Near called me several days after Kira’s inevitable take down to thank me for my help, my sacrifice. _Well, I can be civil_ , I thought. I did do it for him, in a sick way. I had to take a long, hard, mature look at my motivations. It took a fuckton of hard emotional labour to come to the conclusion I came to, to choose Kira’s death over Near’s failure. I nearly died. For four whole days I thought Matt had. For two more I thought he still might, he was in unstable condition for so long. Any lesser man would have had his foundations thoroughly rocked. I told Near he was welcome, but fuck off and never contact me again.

‘Just think I got a cold, maybe.’

‘Go back to bed.’

He sighs.

‘You’re a bit hot.’ I tell him, putting my hand flat on his face. Matt’s been taking Tylenol 3 on and off for three months after I made him quit the dilaudid back in May. All the bullet wounds are healed. He’s not hot. I don’t know what’s hurting him.

‘Guess I’ll sleep a bit longer.’

I look up and see his back leaving.

We were cooped up after our narrow escape. Not many people knew that we’d made it until after the Kira case was closed. It was safer for us, but it also took confusion out of the narrative while the SPK was focused on their goal. It was a restart button for me, too, since death is the only way out of the Mafia. I could have gone back to the mob as a phoenix, or rented a place with Matt and tried something more mundane. I chose Matt. I’ve made the other choice before and regretted it. Now, I could join some government organisation if I ask Near politely. I could be a freelance detective, I could write a book. I could retire. I haven’t decided.

Halle called a handful of times, and I picked up a few days after Matt and I had moved in here. I waited to settle in, first.

‘How did you do it?’ She had asked.

‘Luck.’ I admitted. ‘Pure luck.’

‘Are you in America?’

‘Yes.’ I told her. ‘I’ve come to New York.’

‘Let’s do coffee.’

And we did, while Matt was in bed. I had been getting bored in the apartment. I used time when I would usually rub circles on Matt’s back while he stared at the wall to go for coffee with Halle. I told Matt it was time to be normal; he seemed disturbed by the thought. More than I am.

‘How have you been?’ Halle asked, stirring a packet of Splenda into her Americano.

‘Good. All things considering.’ I uncrossed my arms consciously. FBI jackasses go in for this body language fuckery; I wanted to seem open. I wanted to talk to someone other than Matt. ‘I’m renting in Brookyln Heights. Things have been quiet.’

‘If they’re ever _too_ quiet, we wouldn’t snub another agent.’

‘I’m weighing my options right now.’ I had said.

‘You’ve earnt that.’

‘Damn straight, I have.’

Halle hummed. ‘I’ve missed you.’ she said.

‘I haven’t gone anywhere, as it turns out.’

She’d nodded, smiled. ‘Lucky me.’

I deserve to have whatever the fuck it is I decide I want.

In the afternoon, Matt shuffles out of the bedroom again. I hadn’t gone to sit with him today, I’d made huevos rancheros for myself and then gone to help Halle carry a couch into her new living room.

‘Hey.’ he greets. His hair shaggy, his nose pale with paper freckles. Who had wanted to have a porch for smoking, a garage space for fucking around with the car, a cool city for short walks to the shops? Not me. I loved L.A.

‘Feeling better?’ I ask him.

His liar’s smile flicks on and off a few times. ‘A bit.’

I can reach for him. I am allowed to touch him. I can fuck him, I can bite his collarbones twenty times and bruise them, I can kiss his scalp. I wish he would ask me to. I want to hear him say what he needs; I’m getting tired of guessing. We never lived together like this, before. We were too busy to co-exist. Sometimes I would sleep two hours with him against my chest and then run out again without speaking a word to him, other times we would lust for each other and crash together without preamble. I used to think he was vibrant but irritating and I fell in love with it. This dull addict swings me past pity to fear. I fucking picked him, and he’s barely here to enjoy. I don’t know if I made the right choice. ‘Good.’ I say. ‘So you won’t need any more fucking Tylenol.’

‘It’s just a fever.’

‘Dampen a cloth.’

He stares. He’s maladjusted. He’s fucking losing it.

‘Where did you go today?’ He finally asks, over the sound of the dishwasher starting to grumble.

‘Halle’s. She has a new flat.’

‘Cool.’

‘She’s having a housewarming.’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘She wants me to bring spanikopita.’

‘You’re going?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cool.’

‘So, if you think you’ll be over your fucking cold or your fever or whatever the fuck you’re pretending to have on the 20th at 1900, I’ll bring you along.’

Matt’s jumpy eyes meet mine. I’ve been wanting to yell at him for months and every once in a while a little bit of rage slips out like a kettle whistle. It’s frustrating watching him indiscriminately suffer at arms length, but I’m not a life preserver, I refuse to pull on him.

‘She want me there?’ he asks, ignoring the callout.

‘I don’t think she gives a fuck either way.’

‘You want me there?’

‘Wha’d’ya think?’

He sighs again, heavier. ‘I doubt I’ll enjoy it.’

‘Then don’t come.’

‘Hey, I was just thinking... why don’t you try getting shot to bits by like a hundred dudes sometime, how about that?’ Matt snaps.

I’m taken aback. For a stunning second, speechless. ‘Well, Matt...’ I dry my hands on a dish towel and I want to have this conversation in his face, so I step up. From a foot away we could be of a height, but toe to toe I get to look down. ‘Why don’t _you_ try fucking telling me what’s got you so fucked in the head? I’m not fucking telepathic. It’s about time you started using words other than fucking “cool” and “whatever”, you fucking hypoliterate bastard. And -’ I prod him in the ribs, the stomach, finding the scars where the bullets went in that match the scars on his back where they went out, ‘physically, you are fucking _fine_.’

‘That’s what you think, huh? I should just get over it.’

My fingers are still on his sides, and I smooth the palms out.I’m sorry. ‘I need you to communicate with me. No bullshit about having the flu or being tired.’

‘Uh, ok, well, I guess I’m doing _r_ _eally fucking bad_. I don’t know why, and trust me, it sucks on this end, too. Happy now?’

‘Yes.’

‘... Ok.’ He brings his hands up to his face and scrubs at it. ‘I don’t know what to do right now.’ he admits, ‘I mean, are you actually going to a freaking housewarming? With, what, your old coworker? Don’t tell me: is it a Tupperware party, too?’

I let him deflect. ‘We could start prepping our lunches.’

‘Yeah, if you get into meal planning I’m gonna do what the Kira jackasses couldn’t and put a bullet in my head.’

‘You can do what you want, Matt.’

‘Ok. Callous.’

We deflate. I don’t enjoy fighting with Matt just because I’m good at besting him. I fight to win even when he’s right, and this time he is. I watched him get shot live on TV, and I thought he was dead, and I carried on. I made arrangements. I emptied out his apartment the next day like there’d been a pox. That’s what I do: continue. I move my feet. I’ve been running in place for a long time.

I spread my fingers over the jut of his shoulder blades, down his back, around his waist. Touching him is as grounding as prayer.

Between us, I’m the Utopian. I believe in my own powers, I believe in a world that rewards perfect work. I have visualised a future for Matt and I; I have celebrated our renewed lives together. So what if I bore his death gracefully? I do everything gracefully. I’m fucking beautiful.

If I want to bring a plus one to her party, Halle says when I call her two days later, he has to bring something. Fruit or something, she thinks fruit.

‘He’ll bring fruit.’ I say.

‘As long as the entry fee is paid.’ She sounds lighter than she ever has. No one flourishes in stress. ‘I want to give you that phone number, do you have a pen?’

I’m standing in the living room, watching Matt fiddle with the TV. ‘Sure.’ I say. A childish old habit, memorising phone numbers. All phone numbers, anyone’s. I used to take a lot of pride in never forgetting. ‘What is it?’

‘She’s called Gould. 612-555-2353.’

It’s Halle’s therapist. She insisted. I relented. I’m willing.

‘Alright, Halle. I’m trusting you.’

‘I trusted you.’

‘How’d it turn out?’

‘It gets better and better. I’ll see you tomorrow. You wouldn’t mind swinging by early so we can talk before everyone else arrives?’

‘I’d be happy to.’

‘Wonderful. I’ll let you go.’

‘Bye.’

From behind the wall mounted television, Matt peers out. ‘How many people are going to be at this housewarming?’

‘No idea, Matt.’

‘If I kick you in the shins, that’s the sign to leave.’

‘If you kick me in the shins, ever, I will escort you out through a window.’

‘That works.’

‘I want to introduce you as my partner.’ I say, putting my phone on the coffee table and sitting on the arm of the couch.

‘Neat.’ Matt says, never one for appreciating gravitas.

‘Halle wants you to bring fruit.’

‘Aren’t we one entity? How come I have to bring anything?’

‘And we’re going early so she can meet you formally.’

‘Oh, yeah. Why don’t we just give her our credit card info while we’re at it and she can help herself to whatever?’

‘Go ahead.’ I’m comfortable. I feel, ridiculously, safe. I never knew to miss this feeling; all those years steeped in criminal uncertainty threw off my normal. I haven’t left the apartment all day. Matt insisted I sleep in with him, lazy under the ceiling fan while the birds yelled outside. He said he’d make breakfast and then served me cereal in a mug, the undomestic bastard. I read for two hours on the porch while Matt smoked a cigar and told me that he’d never pictured anything like this for himself, that it made him feel like an impostor, was giving him an existential crisis. He told me he had claustrophobic feelings in open spaces and that he was trying to think of an excuse to pussy out of going to Halle’s thing. I told him I thought he needed to talk to someone other me, sometimes, get out more. Make his first friend, me being more-than and only.

‘Doubt it.’ he’d said, ‘I feel like an idiot in a crowd.’

‘You never fucking push yourself.’ I said.

‘I am pushing myself.’ he insisted. ‘I’m doing what I can. Jackass. Just because I’m not fucking... ignoring how goddamn weird this is.’

‘It won’t be weird in ten years.’ I had promised, fighting frustration with the limits of his effort. ‘You’ll get used to being bored.’ So much of what comes easy to me comes difficult to Matt, so many simple things make him wall eyed. Laundry, conference calls, getting out of bed. But then, so much of Matt’s charm is the lax exterior over a complex intellect. His strength was never in tackling the real world. If I ever want to feel humble (I don’t) I’d only need to ask him about binomial random walks and then schedule an hour out of my day for him to go wildly off topic.

Friday night, I wrap a plate of melon and strawberries in plastic and Matt tells me I’m driving. He’s getting drunk instead of taking any codeine. This news he delivers between teeth grinning, so I’m forced to take it lightly. Matt’s manipulative game. If it’s a joke, it’s fine. If he’s laughing and I’m not, I’m the asshole. At least he’s being open about it. I put the container of spanikotpita between his feet in the passenger’s seat and give him the fruit to hold.

It took me this long to introduce Matt to Halle, who is functionally my best friend, because for so many years, I didn’t introduce him to anyone. Flaunting Matt didn’t serve to benefit me. Besides that, I never liked it when people knew anything about me that I didn’t tell them loudly, directly, with a gun in their face. I control my narrative, _always_. Being simultaneously flamboyant, aggressive, freaky, and dangerous – played right, it can be powerful, disarming contrast. It wasn’t worth navigating spousal politics in the gang, or piling a reputation for loving devotion onto my already perfectly crafted, finely refined image.

‘What does she need two bedrooms for?’ Matt asks, throwing his cigarette onto Halle’s driveway when we pull up in front of her new house.

‘Maybe she’ll give you a tour before it all burns down and you can find out.’

Shamed, he scrubs the butt with his boot until it’s indiscernible in the gravel when he gets out. The second bedroom is an office, but it doesn’t matter because Matt doesn’t care. He talks aimlessly when he’s nervous.

‘The door’s open, let yourselves in!’ Halle calls, appearing in front of an open upstairs window in jeans and t-shirt.

She’s drifting down the stairs when we close the front door behind us. ‘You must be Matt.’ she says crisply, putting out one hand.

‘I see why you’re a detective,’ answers Matt with a sardonic half-smile, cradling the fruit in both arms.

‘Right,’ Halle says, after an awkward retraction of her hand.

I’m sorry for Halle’s assumption that attempting to get to know Matt would be fruitful. I sit next to him on the couch and put my arm over his shoulders, trying to include him despite his best efforts to go ignored. Over the course of the aging afternoon, his nervous countenance slips away into catatonic boredom and then flips into blunt drunkenness. I’m hyper-aware of his and Halle’s incompatibility. She makes dry, rare jokes; he bristles when she insists he use a coaster.

She says, ‘All these years, and you never told me you were seeing anyone.’

‘It wasn’t the time.’ I say. I’m massaging my thumb in circles at the nape of Matt’s neck, coaxing him to relax.

‘No. It wasn’t a good time.’ Halle agrees.

‘You’re familiar.’ she continues, looking at Matt. ‘You were the driver, were you not? You created the diversion so Mello could take Takada.’

‘So you could give him Takada, yeah.’ Matt says.

‘You don’t have to defend his actions to _me_ , Matt.’ Halle says with cool, clipped cadence. ‘I remember you were shot. I’m sorry to have enabled that. It affected me, hearing that the plan might have killed Mello and another. I’m happy to have you here.’

Matt finishes his drink and puts the glass back down on the coaster. He releases some tension, lets his shoulder slide into place under my arm, and we’re finally connected in the honesty of Halle’s empathetic acquaintance. I want to say _I told you so, fucker; I told you this would make everything real._ _Here’s a woman who knew you before you died and knows you now that you’ve survived._ It helped me, though I didn’t want to need it to, at first. It helped to hear Halle say she’d worried and then mourned. I would have been missed. Matt would have been... acknowledged, at least. It’ll have to be enough for him.

The doorbell rings, and Halle rises to answer. It takes another twenty minutes for every guest to arrive, time during which Halle gives three tours, makes a number of introductions, and gives everyone coloured rings to identify their glasses. Tucked into the couch cushions, Matt is isolate. He asks me once where the bathroom is and disappears to smoke on the balcony while he’s at it. When he returns, I’m standing around the kitchen island with the party, helping myself to two-bite brownies. I reel him in with a finger in his belt loop so I can do what I wanted to do: introduce us.

‘How did you guys meet?’ Benhardt, an accountant who graduated NYU in the same year as Halle, asks, pointing from me to Matt and back again.

Before I can open my mouth, Matt says ‘Orphanage.’

‘Oh. Shit. Sorry.’ says Benhardt.

Matt’s going to fucking train everyone not to talk to him.‘Nothing to apologize for.’ I say pointedly.

‘Is there any more of this?’ Matt asks, shaking his martini glass, which he had filled with cherry gin only a moment ago. ‘I need more of this.’

‘Do you want a coke?’ Halle asks tactfully.

‘Nope.’ says Matt, obliviously.

As the night edges on, I’m thankful that Halle keeps intelligent company – not that all her friends are necessarily intellectual, but spread between them they boast of gregariousness, warmth, intuitiveness, empathetic social graces, and adequately interesting hobbies. Two of them are impressed by Matt’s new car and engage with his technical jargon; one agrees with something he says about Microsoft and the Beatles. Even though he stutters on his feet when he leaves my side to procure the bowl of Lays on the other end of the island, and he’s starting to get loud when he interrupts people who are trying to have casual discussions about things he has polarizing opinions about (the list gets longer when he gets drunker, but mostly comprises of electronics, anything to which he thinks he can apply a formula, and the relation of all topics to the most recent publication he strained the limits of his attention span to read recently), I tentatively think he’s doing well.

‘At least there’s no Tupperware.’ he jokes when we move into the living room and onto a bottle of Scotch Benhardt brought as a gift.

‘I told you so.’ I get to say.

‘Mkay. Still sucks, though.’

It doesn’t. I’m the closest I’ve ever come to living the way I assumed I would back when I was an ignorant child. I’m the most elaborately dressed, most worldly, most important man in the room; but I’m also a man having a nice evening with the person I love, drinking a finger of scotch in good company. I am both. I have done everything, and now I’m doing nothing because I can. Every time I start to feel my throat close, start to jiggle my leg, I repeat this like a mantra. I am doing nothing because I want to. I am taking up most of the room on the couch in a deliberate slouch; fuck it, I’m showing off. Near could never do this. Look at my pretty fucking boyfriend. Look at my pretty fucking face. Look at my legs. Oh, and fuck you.

Matt dozes during the drive home with his temple on the cold window, and complains when I pull him out of the passenger’s seat by the arm when we park at home.

‘Sleep in the car.’ I suggest when he makes himself limp against my attempt at hauling him bodily onto the pavement.

‘No.’ he says. ‘Won’t.’

‘Then get up.’

‘I’m gonna be sick.’

‘Well, fuck. Not on my shoes.’

I manage to wrestle him up from the car park to the elevator to the apartment. He looks doey at me in the doorway and kisses me, pulls on my lower lip with his teeth. ‘That was kinda horny.’ he says.

‘I can’t imagine how.’

‘You held my hand.’

I snort. ‘What a fucking virgin thing to say.’

‘Nah, just you never did that before.’

‘It wasn’t horny.’

He pulls away and shrugs up to his red ears. His whole face is ruddy and sparkling. He’s waving like a stalk of wheat from exhaustion and alcoholic vertigo but he somehow looks more alive than he has since he died in Japan. ‘Was something, though.’

I turn out the lights. I close the bedroom door and open the window. I prod Matt’s sides to herd him into bed. I have to move his flopping limbs so I can get comfortable under the sheet we use as a blanket.

‘Don’t hog the thing.’ Matt grumbles.

‘I’m not.’

‘How much you got?’

‘I thought you were fucking passing out.’ I snap, lifting my half of the sheet up so he can see it.

‘That’s more than I got.’

Sometimes, when I was crashing between jobs, Matt would bitch about this that or the other thing like the blankets falling onto the floor or my breathing getting too loud (not snoring) and I would shut him up by pulling him onto my chest and squeezing him like strangling or wanting. Now I think I’ve taught him to be annoying when he wants me to be touch him. I sigh and grab at his shoulders, pull him to me, and press my palms into his back with deliberate pressure.

‘Is this what it’s about?’ he asks nonsensically.

‘Yeah.’ I say to placate.

He deflates. ‘I love you.’

‘And I love you,’ I say, feeling wrung out and liminal.

‘Whatever.’ he says, and falls asleep with his mouth open.

I drink my coffee on the porch in the morning, my feet up on the plastic side table where Matt’s ashtray is overflowing with roaches and stale gum.

Before I’m even finished, Matt comes out and I ask if he’s feeling well.

‘Yeah.’ He says, throwing himself into the other chair. ‘What’s the plan today?’

‘I’m taking the bike in for servicing at 10.’ I say.

Matt nods slowly and lights up. He looks grey but also stunningly beautiful. He’s never been up this early, not since he died. ‘Want me to come with and we can go to the mall or something?’ he asks.

‘Sounds good.’ I say. ‘You’re due for a re-style.’

‘Oh, really rude. This is new.’ He says, pinching the fabric of his faded blue t-shirt, which he used to sleep in at Wammy’s, and leaning closer to show me the worn down fabric.

‘King Tut was wearing that when they buried him.’

‘Uh, doubt it.’

‘Remind me - who was it that maintained perfect scores in History for the entirety of his time at Wammy’s?’

‘Near.’

‘You fucking bastard.’

He leans back into his chair with a self satisfied little smile. ‘Wow. I’m actually...’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Good. Bit of a headache.’

‘Too fucking bad.’

‘Didn’t mean it like that.’ Matt snaps. ‘You said talk, goddamn listen.’

‘I am.’

‘Fuck you are. What do you think, anyway?’

‘About what?’

‘Dying, living, giving up on all your dreams, losing, beating Kira. Just all that.’

‘Oxymoron.’

‘So?’

When I put my empty cup on the table, Matt starts tapping his ashes into it. ‘So empty your ash trays and start emptying the trash while you’re at it, I do fucking everything around here.’ I say.

‘Sure. Maybe we hire a maid once a week.’

‘No - ’

‘But I asked you a question, pretty directly.’

‘I don’t know, Matt. I’m not sitting on my ass ruminating. I’m busy.’

‘Emptying the trash or whatever.’

I glare. ‘I’m not a time waster.’

‘Right.’

Another one those arguments where he’s right and we both know it, but I’m going to dig my heels in until he’s tired. I’m starting to see the pattern: he’s always right, if he goes to the effort to make a fight of it. Matt, for all that he steps on mankind’s generally agreed upon interpersonal guidelines, is a perceptive asshole with a wicked honest streak. I think he wants the best for me. I think he’s trying to do what I did to him: shake me. _I’m just managing,_ he’d told me when I first took away the dilaudid. _I’m not doing anything I don’t need to!_ he’d complained when I had to take it away again, when I found out he’d been hiding it from me. And then, only a week ago when I put my foot down on Tylenol, _I’_ _m doing what I can._ I wonder if _I’m_ trying my best. Is _this_ our best? How pathetic. How fucking sad.

‘We can grab brunch.’ I suggest.

Matt lets me change the subject. ‘Mimosas.’ He blows smoke upwards, head tilted back. ‘Yes.’

‘I’m calling Halle’s therapist.’ I say. ‘Suck on that.’

Matt snorts, chokes and coughs.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask while he’s gasping and rubbing his sternum like he’s trying to resuscitate himself.

‘Uh-huh.’ he gasps. ‘ _Jesus._ ’

‘Need me to do anything?’

He shakes his head. ‘Just gimme a sec, I’m good.’

‘I got until 0930; then I’m leaving.’

As soon as he’s caught his breath, he pulls on the last of his cigarette and flicks it over the railing. ‘It is just like you to make this a competition.’

‘I am not.’

‘Uh, are too. Race to normalcy. Hey: something Near could never hope to beat you at.’

‘Stop bringing him up.’

‘I probably never will.’

Matt clears his throat and lets out a long, whistling breath. It’s starting to get warm already; sunlight is throwing glare off the windows of the neighbouring apartment complexes. All silences with Matt are comfortable. He wears slack-faced equanimity like a cozy sweater or, more immediately relevant, an old t-shirt. He looks off at the horizon, snaps his goggles over his eyes against the bright onset of morning, and goes away into his head. For someone who bitches about boring tasks, he is remarkably good at sitting still and doing nothing but smoking or drinking or being high or playing tetris or dozing.

‘I could do this forever.’ I tell him, turning away from the lazy sight of his dazed smile. ‘I know what I’ve said in the past, the person I’ve been, and the choices I’ve made – despite who I am, or who I said I wanted to be... I know what I want, now. I _could_ do this forever, with you. I’m happy. That’s what I think, Matt.’

‘And I’m not.’ he says softly, after a moment of contemplation and a guilty frown. ‘I guess that’s why I piss you off so much.’

‘I guess it is.’

‘But like... you stay.’

‘I’ll put up with you for as long as it takes.’

‘If it never gets better than this? Or, it does, and then, like... I fuck it up?’

‘Don’t be so unambitious. It’s useless competing against someone who isn’t trying.’

‘Ha! You admit it. Another reason I piss you off.’

‘Actually, I’d’ve hated you if you’d challenged me.’

‘Hypocrite. Sort yourself out.’

‘No, I _would_ have. I’ve changed. I’m better.’ I reach for his hand – he’s starting to look dejected, resolved. I couldn’t live with myself if I let him drift away, left him to squander his second chance wasting away in traumatised self-soothing. I was wrong, I was wrong. I see everything clearly under this new sun. Also, Halle texted me this morning asking if Matt was ok, inviting us both to dinner on Sunday, but mostly wanting earnestly to know him and helpfully, kindly fold him into her social circle. It shamed me. I had woken up embarrassed for having brought him out in public. 

‘Yeah, you’re the best. I could’ve told you that, if you were worried about that.’

‘I have work to do.’ I insist, warmed anyway by how quickly he’ll defend me, even against me. ‘But I’ll do it.’

Matt squeezes my hand. ‘I’ll probably do it, too, after a few mimosas.’

I roll my eyes. ‘I’m gonna get dressed.’

‘Maybe some of those cranberry things, champagne and cranberry.’

‘Empty the ash tray before we leave.’

He picks it up and dumps it over the railing into the street. ‘I’m not allowed Tylenol 3, but I can still do other shit, right?’ he asks, clearly at the end of his tolerance for serious conversation.

I get up and close the patio door on him. At least Kira’s dead and Near doesn’t have my new phone number. Baby steps. 

**Author's Note:**

> matt: doesn't help with chores, refuses to give up painkiller reliance, rude  
> mello: awwww <3333


End file.
